Measha Brueggergosman

“Brueggergosman has a lovely lyric voice with a soaring top . . . She has the assets to become a genuine star . . .”

Opera News (New York), June 2009

Biography

Born in 1977 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the daughter of an employee of the Canadian Broadcasting Company grew up listening to classical music on CBC radio. When her remarkable sense of pitch and fearlessness as a performer were recognized by her first-grade teacher, her parents were encouraged to sign her up for both piano and singing lessons. At the age of fifteen she decided in favour of a singing career and subsequently studied at the University of Toronto with soprano Mary Morrison and after graduation continued her musical education with soprano and Lieder expert Edith Wiens in Germany. She later also worked with such distinguished musicians as Margaret Baker-Genovesi, Christoph Eschenbach, Brigitte Fassbaender, Margo Garrett, Håkan Hagegård, Jessye Norman, Rudolf Piernay, Thomas Quasthoff and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

1998

Sings the title role in the world premiere of James Rolfe’s Beatrice Chancy in Toronto

1999

Performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at the Millennium Opera Gala

2000

Prize winner at the International Robert Schumann Competition, Zwickau, Germany

2001

Wins Kirsten Flagstad Memorial Award at the George London Foundation Competition in New York and top prize at the International Wigmore Hall Song Competition in London. Verdi’s Requiem at the Bonn International Beethoven Festival, the Stuttgart European Music Festival and in Berlin

2002

Grand Prize at the Jeunesses Musicales International Competition in Montreal. Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II, Toronto. Appearances at the Cincinnati Opera as Sister Rose in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and the Fifth Maid in Richard Strauss’s Elektra

2003

Prize winner at the ARD International Competition in Munich and the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo. Appearance at the Cincinnati Opera as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot

2004

Prize winner at the s’Hertogenbosch International Competition. During the 2004/05 season she makes her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Tanglewood Festival, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs and the Cologne Philharmonic in Britten’s War Requiem. Recital tour of North America and a concert series in Canada. European recital appearances include Verbier, Edinburgh and Bergen. Other highlights of the season include performances at the Canada Day celebrations from Parliament Hill in Ottawa, appearances on the Juno Awards ceremony broadcast live throughout Canada and a series of recitals – ranging from opera to jazz favourites – at the Stratford (Ontario) Summer Music Festival

2005

Performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the San Diego Symphony and the Detroit Symphony. Debut with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony in Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass. Operatic debuts include appearances as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Vancouver Opera

2006

Concerts include Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 with the Orchestre philharmonique du Luxembourg; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; Mozart’s Requiem with Itzhak Perlman and the Seattle Symphony, Strauss’s Four Last Songs in Quebec and Barber’s Knoxville in London. At the inaugural concert for Miami’s Carnival Center for the Performing Arts she sings Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5 with the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas and appears again with him in Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 and Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder together with the San Francisco Symphony. Operatic appearances include Juno in Joseph Martin Kraus’s Aeneas in Carthage at the Stuttgart Staatstheater. Debut recital at London’s Wigmore Hall. Measha Brueggergosman becomes an exclusive artist of Deutsche Grammophon

2007

Performances include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with The Cleveland Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington; Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Mahler’s Wayfarer Songs and Gershwin songs with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, both under Gustavo Dudamel. Participates in a “Black and White Opera Soirée” at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre. Recitals with pianists Roger Vignoles (including Carnegie Hall), Jean-Yves Thibaudet, J.J. Penna and William Bolcom. She sings songs and arias (many of which are included on her debut solo album, Surprise, released in 2008) with the New York Philharmonic in New York’s Central Park, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philharmonia Brasileira. Release of her orchestral debut recording on the Yellow Label, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with The Cleveland Orchestra under Welser-Möst

2008

Concerts include Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass in London, Messiaen’s Poèmes pour mi in Germany and Amsterdam, Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony in the USA, Strauss’s Four Last Songs in Spain and Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été in Canada. Festivals include Verbier, Stratford (Canada), Aspen, Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin. She gives recitals with Roger Vignoles in Ireland and with Justus Zeyen in Vienna and Germany, and makes her first stage appearance in a Mozart opera as a highly acclaimed Elettra (Idomeneo) in Toronto. International release of her debut solo recording, Surprise, with newly orchestrated songs by Grammy® and Pulitzer prize-winning composer William Bolcom, Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder and songs by Erik Satie (Canada’s Juno Award as “Best Classical Album”, Diapason d’or, 2008)

2009

Appearances include Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time and Berg’s Seven Early Songs in the USA; Strauss’s Four Last Songs in the USA and Canada; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the USA, Montreal and Madrid; Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder in Berlin; Barber’s Knoxville and Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs in Sweden; Debussy’s L’Enfant prodigue in Belgium. Festival appearances include Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été at the Salzburg Begegnungen Festival and debut as Bess in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Styriarte Festival; recital with Jean-Yves Thibaudet in New York. Appears in the introducing concert of the You Tube Symphony Orchestra, the world’s first ever orchestra selected entirely through online auditions, under Michael Tilson Thomas in New York’s Carnegie Hall

2010

Performances of Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder in the USA; Ravel’s Shéhérazade in Amsterdam and Toronto; Mahler’s Symphony no. 8 in Canada and Das klagende Lied in the Netherlands; participates in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking in Houston under the direction of Patrick Summers. Appearances in the UK, Germany, Luxembourg, France and Spain with Justus Zeyen, performing the programme of her new album, Night and Dreams, with well- and little-known songs of Duparc, Falla, Hahn, Liszt, Schubert and others. The album is due for release at the beginning of the year